Wipe Out

I totally wiped out on my bicycle on my way back from lunch yesterday afternoon. I was pulling back into the Novell parking lot when I noticed that the sprinklers were on up ahead of me and were doing a pretty good job of watering the pavement. Most of the parking lot is paved with asphalt except for a small patch right in front of building H that is smooth concrete. I was approaching the building from the South and needed to make a hard left to get to where I parked my bike on the West side of the building. This took me right over the patch of smooth, wet concrete. I've had trouble here before on my motorcycle when the pavement was wet so I slowed way down on the bike.

I was probably going 20 MPH when I pulled into the Novell parking lot and slowed down to a good 10 MPH as I was approaching the wet pavement. Well, apparently I didn't slow down enough because as soon as I turned my handlebars, my bike went flying out from beneath me and my body slid a good 6 to 8 feet on the concrete. Ouch! The most embarrassing part was that there were a good half a dozen people standing in front of the building who witnessed the whole event. They all rushed over to see if I was OK. Fortunately I was. My head did hit the ground but it was little more than a light tap. I had enough forward momentum that it was really more of a slide than a fall.

After taking a couple of seconds to regain my composure I hopped back on my bike and rode the rest of the way to the side of the building. I didn't do any major damage but I've got some small patches of road rash and a couple of bruises today.